muslim
Lifetime’s Assassination of Malcolm X
In the Lifetime Original Movie 'Betty & Coretta,' they present cardboard versions of what I like to call "Early Malcolm" and "Real Malcolm." But Early Malcolm and Real Malcolm are not real. They are both fabrications that serve to oversimplify a...
The Ravens Are God's Favorites
Fifty-three percent of Americans think God rewards athletes who believe in Him with good health and great success. In other words, yesterday, God chose his most-loved, and by default his most-hated, Harbaugh brother.
A Catholic Hospital Is Arguing That a Fetus Is Not a Person
Legally, the argument is sound. Colorado, the state, does not define a fetus as a person. But what kind of blatant hypocrisy would motivate a Catholic hospital to argue in court that only individuals born alive are people?
Islamophobes, Go to Sleep
When I agreed to write a column for VICE, I was granted this space, and I am responsible for what happens in this space. Today, I’m going to use this space to rub your racist and bigoted shit in your own faces.
Obama = Yazid
I have voted twice for a man who launches drone strikes on innocent civillians and defines what is happening in Gaza right now as "self-defense." As it stands, I have voted for Yazid.
Queering the Qur’an
Al-Kisa’i al-Kufi is the man who gave us one of the seven canonical readings of the Qur’an in Sunni Islam. He devoted his life to knowing and teaching the Qur’an. Along the way, he apparently fucked dudes. The lips that he used to recite divine...
The Case for Voting
It's so easy to feel jaded at the American political system. The problem is, not everyone feels that way. Most religious believers think they can make a change. And, really, they're right, because no one's playing defense.
'Law & Order: SVU' Sucks at Depicting Muslims
Last week’s 'Law & Order: SVU' episode, “Acceptable Loss,” reminded me that if I want to see a TV drama treat Muslim characters as capable of full human complexity, cop shows might not be the best place to look.
The Theological Consequences of Seeing Hulk Hogan’s Penis
Being surprised that Hulk Hogan has a sex tape is kind of like being surprised that there’s a Burger King in Mecca. The “sacred/profane” binary often turns out to be artificial, but sometimes we need to imagine that the binary exists. The time will...
God Vs. The Ladies
The original scriptures—the template which has led to today's incarnation of religion—were written by men during a time when women were property and mystical beasts who occasionally farted out children. This factoid explains the troubling inherent...
Brother Ali and the Secret Islamic History of Hip-Hop
Meeting Brother Ali after his tour’s stop in Chapel Hill, I didn’t ask him for his “How did you come to Islam?” story, and he didn’t ask for mine, but our shared matrix of references and anecdotes told me that we might have walked similar paths.
The Innocence of White People
As an artist, I support everyone’s right to make shitty, cheap-looking art, and I do not believe that bloodshed is ever an acceptable way of responding to art. But in the big picture, this isn’t really about violent religion vs. nonviolent art; it’s...